ottawa foodies

Last night I pulled out my pastry brush for the first time since last summer. I use my brush for spreading marinades on meat. However I have been using a brush with a wooden handle and nylon bristles similar to the one in the picture. After many years of service the residue has built up enough I no longer feel comfortable using it. So I am now looking for a replacement. I bought the brush when I first moved out (read: absolutely no cooking experience). When I bought my grill a few years ago and started marinading stuff I pulled out the pastry brush and quickly realized that the one I picked out may not have been the best choice-:) (I have been washing it in warm soapy water but to no avail.) So I am looking for something that is mostly easy to clean but will also do a good job of brushing marinades on my meats. Suggestions anyone?

my previous pastry brush, similar to the photo above, had a tendancy to leave hairs behind when using hot marinades or melted butter. i switched to a wire handled, silicone pastry brush and i am really happy with it. the bristles are soft, easy to wash, you can put it in the dishwasher, can use on high heat settings - sometimes i want to brush butter onto the bottom of a hot pan, and best of all, it never leaves loose hairs behind. i find it spread marinades and butter, milk, water evenly.

it was fairly cheap, just a standard, wire handled silicone brush.

Pasta Lover - I have a regular one from Pampered Chef that I use for butter, oil etc. "The Man" has two (different sized) silicone ones that he used for marinades, and sauces when he BBQs. They work well for that because as stated they can go into the dishwasher and come out perfect (no sticky orangey stuff clingy to them, LOL).

I use a silicone one for marinades,and bbq, but find the silicone one not as good in the traditional 'pastry brush' roll of brushing small even amounts of water or melted butter. If you are careful to only use your pastry brush for butter and water, it should last much longer than if you try to use it for bbq sauce.

Thanks everyone for the comments so far. Using a silicone brush had actually crossed my mind since silicone looks like it would be easy to clean. However I was wondering how well it would spread marinades. I usually make an oil based marinade (olive oil, s&p, then whatever herb I am getting a hankering for at the time). However the brush that hipfunkyfun uses sounds like it might do the trick. Actually when I was reading her post I had a "d'oh" moment. Last summer I was experimenting with flavoured butters so I decided to try a maitre d'hotel sauce to serve over steak. (I am now trying to move on from the basic roast chicken etc. that I usually make and I have been trying out some "fancier" recipes...) It was quite a sight watching me "buttering" my steak-:) I may try hipfunkyfun's method of buttering the pan first then browning the steak in it.

I agree with Pete, silicone brushes are great for meats/fish. I never trust that the regular brushes get clean enough after using on meats. Also the flavor from the last marinate doesn't carry forward. Dollarama sells them.
Although for pastry items that require butter or an egg wash I prefer to use the traditional bristle brush. At the restaurant supply stores they sell a brush with a yellowish-brown handle with similar colored bristles. Expensive but doesn't seem to lose it's bristles as quickly as cheaper ones. Not sure of the brand name? Although, if you don't do a whole lot of baking/pastry the dollar store ones work well enough, you just have to keep an eye out.

I absolutely hate the silicone one I have, heat resistant plastic material with sort of spiral or rings at bottom of brush and it sucks, I hate it. I like the 'hair' ones but don't like the 'build-up' which I always assume is some sort of bacteria!! So I just bought a new one and I fill a coffee cup up with very hot tap water and put dish soap in it, and put the brush in to soak or clean as soon as I am done with it, hopefully it lasts longer that way. I also hate how the bristles come off, if I'm putting shortening on a cake pan, the last thing I want is a bristle to come off and someone think it's a hair or something, so I always try to get any loose hairs off before I stick it in anything.

Soaking your brush will cause the bristles to fall out and/or break much sooner. Wash it well with soap rinse with hot hot water and then dry gently with a clean towel and lay flat to dry. Will last much longer. If there is build up it most definatly is bacteria or will soon be:(

I also hate my silicon brushes. I find they do terrible jobs with less viscous liquids like melted butter or vinegar bases. I also find them terribly messy, flinging liquid all over the place (although this may also be operator error).

Traditional bristle brushes are the way to go. Make sure the bristles are fastened with metal braid, not epoxies. This helps to significantly cut down on bristle loss, especially when saucing over heat sources.

Just last night on Good Eats Alton Brown talked about brushes. His new fav is a silicone one but in between the bristles is a square of silicone with squares cut out that, he claims, grabs the melted butter and keeps some in there and then the brush part spreads it. He claims that there is less messy "drippage" and that it works well. I haven't seen in person yet but.....

Cooks Illustrated recommended one that had a combination of fine silicone threads and thicker silicone threads... I think they also recommended the flappy one. Nobody uses a feather anymore?!

foodntravel - I was going to pipe in and suggest just that kind of brush. It works well, and there isn't that much drippage (so long as you don't overload the thing.) Mine's made by Paderno, so I'm pretty sure you would be able to get it at the Glebe Emporium/MCL Hospitality/etc.